Literary birthday greetings: The Say Hey Kid

Willie Mays turns 80 today. Wow.

Somewhere in my stacks I have some yellowing magazines from the mid-60s that still compared Mays to Mickey Mantle, Duke Snider having been out of the picture for a couple of seasons.

Mays appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated nine times (six as an active player). So much for the “curse,” at least over the course of his career; frankly I don’t feel like doing the research to look into the immediate aftermath of each issue (1955, ’58, ’59,’62, ’70, and ’72).

UPDATE: This Sports Illustrated slide show features rare Mays photos.

Needless to say, there are dozens of books about Mays, covering all ages, interests, and cultural demographics. Here are just a few:

Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend, by Hirsch, 2010
Willie’s Boys: The 1948 Birmingham Black Barons, The Last Negro League World Series, and the Making of a Baseball Legend, by Kilma, 2009
Say Hey: The Autobiography of Willie Mays, by Mays and Sahadi, 1989
Willie’s Time: Baseball’s Golden Age (Writing Baseball), by Einstein, 2004
Willie Mays: Art in the Outfield, by Shannon, 2007
The Willie Mays Story, by Shapiro,1964
Willie Mays: The Say Hey Kid, by Smith, 2005 (juvenile)
The Baseball Life of Willie Mays, by Greene, 1970
Willie Mays (Black American Series), Burkhardt, 1992
Willie Mays, by Hano (1966)
My Life in and out of Baseball, by Mays and Einstein, 1972

And this doesn’t even touch all the other Mays collectibles…

Here are a few more relevant items for your consideration:

San Francisco’s Say Hey Kid Willie Mays turns 80, from the SF Examiner
Ten reasons Willie Mays is Best Ever, from ESPN.com
Happy 80th, Willie, and thanks for the lessons, from the Tacoma News Tribune
The Giants’ official website has several pieces marking the occasion, including this.
Surpisingly, there’s nothing in any of the New York papers today, even though Mays began and ended his career in the Big Apple. Perhaps they’ll do something over the weekend.